What actually happens to a Bits of Good (BOG) project that’s been completed? Does it just sit, collecting virtual dust? Not At BOG: here, we place great importance in staying in communication with the non-profit to add needed updates.

Meet Veena, a third semester BOG-ger whose work as a Project Manager last semester on the Product Maintenance team helped uncover exactly what happens to these finished projects! Now serving as Product Co-Director on the executive board, Veena brings her project management expertise to BOG’s leadership.

Q: So, what exactly do you do?

A: “Essentially, we work closely with past nonprofits whose requirements in their initial proposal have been met. After the application has hit the market, bugs doubtless arise. It’s our job to draft the necessary tickets (tasks) and make sure they’re resolved.”

Q: Talk me through a project.

A: “We created an app for the Angels Among Us nonprofit organization.

After the launch of the app, the user would sign in using a password, and an admin would go in and approve or deny a user. It’s great, but not super convenient on the admins end. The nonprofit reached out and asked us to include a ‘Sign up with’ feature and include third party applications like Google and Facebook. This was easily one of the more successful projects because of how organized the code base was, how ‘easy to see’ the features implemented were, and generally bug-free code. “

Q: How do you, as a project manager, decide what features take priority?
A: “That’s totally up to the nonprofit. They send us a list of features that they’d like, and we communicate with them to rank the features on priority. I then write a high level ticket (minus all the technical details - I leave that to the Engineering Manager!) for the team.”

Q: What happens after the team completes a ticket?

A: “It comes to me and I test out the base functionality. Really, I think of all edge cases that could come up when a user interfaces with the platform and try it myself. If I see a problem, I directly notify the EM (the one who deals with the technical details), and they will draft more tickets. Otherwise, I will report status ‘okay’ back to the EM!”

Q: How do you make sure the team is on track?

A: “We work in sprints (typically 1-2 weeks), so I anticipate ‘x’ number of deliverables per sprint. I guess the only downside is that if, in the middle of a spring, the nonprofit has some kind of update on a feature, I’d have to wait until the next sprint, as a ticket cannot be retracted. But, for the most part, this has proven pretty successful in managing a large team that works with upwards of 7 nonprofits at a time. The methodology, by the way, is called Agile and translates very well into industry. Most software development positions utilize Agile on their teams.”

Q: Agile sounds interesting! What technologies do you use as an “Agile” PM?

A: “Well, when communicating with the nonprofit, we primarily use Google Meet for video and Email communication for written. In communicating with the EM and devs, Notion is my go-to. It has sections that have the tickets that are currently being worked on, and what we call backlog, which are tickets not yet handled by the team yet.”

Q: How do you handle a busy semester?

A: “This semester was especially difficult. There were a lot of nonprofits, each with a long list of requirements, and we kept running into admin errors where we didn’t have the necessary credentials or permissions to access the platforms. But throughout all this, I found that the key is communication. This included hopping on calls with the nonprofit, my co-product manager, and even the EMs to help flesh out what we’re trying to develop. Due to this, we were able to round out the semester successfully!”

Q: That’s Great! On that note, any final advice for students interested in BOG?

A: “Just try it! College is the best place to experiment and see what you like. I am primarily a developer, but I thought I’d give Project Management a shot and see where it takes me. This was the best decision because I’ve really enjoyed it. At BOG, the practices and methodologies are all industry standard, so this is the closest you’d get to internship experience and, from my perspective, it gives you a good holistic background for SWE roles!”